PROPERS: BURIAL OF THE DEAD, RITE 2
TEXT: ROMANS 8:14-19, 34-35, 37-39
PREACHED AT THE FUNERAL OF BETH BOLING BATSON AT RESURRECTION, STARKVILLE, ON SATURDAY, MARCH 9, 2024
ONE SENTENCE: The burdens we all will bear are ultimately relieved as we fall into the embrace of God’s loving arms.
At some time in April 1993, the Resurrection family held what was known as a “pounding” for their new rector and his family. The concept was to bring a pound of whatever you wished to help the new clergy family settle into their new home.
Nora and I were the beneficiaries of those gifts. And there were some imaginative ones. A pound of nails. A pound of golf balls. And one of my favorites: a pound of beer (a 16 ounce “tall boy”).
But the one I used the longest was this one.
+ + +
A cookbook. Southern Legacies, by Nancy Patty Walker, mother of Jeanne Wakeman. It was given to me by Beth and Bill Batson. And Beth told me it was the last copy available. It was even signed by Mrs. Walker.
It is like a snapshot of an older and more gracious age – long before microwaves, cake mixes, home delivery, Instant Pots, and Sous Vide machines. Even before the Little Dooey!
I suspect each recipe had a story behind it. And, oh, if that book could talk! Beth and Bill knew the treasure they were bestowing on us. A treasure it was.
Over the years, I drew on one specific recipe again and again: Kittie’s Gumbo on page 110. It is a magnificent, complex dish that I made each time we went to the beach.
It had the many flavors of any good gumbo, as well as great mixture of ingredients – onion, celery, okra, chicken broth, tomatoes, garlic, bay leaves, shrimp, crabmeat, oysters, and the piece de resistance, file powder.
It was scrumptious served over steaming rice.
But like most good gumbos, it was held together by something mysterious and hard-to-achieve. The roux.
Making roux is an art. It is, of course, a mixture of flour and fat (usually oil), cooked over a low heat for an extended period. You have to get roux to the correct stage – the precise color needed for the dish. If you don’t cook it long enough, the dish will not be right. If you cook it too long, it will burn, ruining the recipe.
But if the roux is right, the dish will come together, hold together, and be a joy.
Beth was a perfect roux.
She held together many complex ingredients. Her recipe included many shades and colors. The bold dish her life represented drew many disparate elements together to meld a joyful combination of interests, abilities, tastes, and perspectives.
A lesson Nora and I learned from her: Don’t ever paint a wall beige.
We do have on our walls, however, a watercolor she painted. Empty wine bottles and glasses, indicating celebration with friends.
If we were to paint a portrait of Beth’s life it would be in broad strokes of bold colors. Anyone who met her would be impressed by her joy, her effervescent personality, and her wide smile.
Those of us who were blessed to share a slice of life with her were held together by the roux-like magic of her personality.
Sadly, the fact of human existence tells us that all joys come to some sort of conclusion in this world. Beth came face-to-face with her limits. Bill, Court, and Tray walked with her through that very dark and seemingly endless valley. Court and Tray were accompanied by Claire and Kathleen. They knew Beth as their beloved wife and mother and tenderly cared for her until she crossed to the other side. Her many friends held her in their thoughts and prayers – most from a distance.
St. Paul, the greatest of all missionaries, knew those limits faced us all. Despite expectations from some early Christians that the kingdom would come during his lifetime, Paul knew something much deeper and more profound. New life is assured through all circumstances.
That truth that he knew is summed up so well in the eighth chapter of his Letter to the Romans:
8:18 I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us… 37 No, in all these things we are more than victorious through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
In another place, First Corinthians, Paul says that now we see in a glass darkly and then we will see face-to-face… now we understand in part, then we will be fully understood.
As hard as it is to accept that Beth has crossed the bar and entered into a world not of our own, we can take comfort that she is in that place where she sees things as they really are, that she truly understands, and is truly understood.
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